This application relates generally to disc drives and more particularly to a disc drive cover configured to act as a heat sink for an electronic circuit within the disc drive.
Current disc drive designs utilize a preamplifier to amplify weak read signals produced by magnetoresistive read elements in the read/write heads. The preamplifier needs to be located near the heads to minimize signal loss in the leads between the heads and the preamplifier. Consequently, the preamplifier is mounted on the top or side of the actuator assembly that carries the read/write heads. Now, with drives getting very small, but carrying much greater data capacities, there is little room on an actuator assembly to mount the preamplifier. Therefore, the preamplifier has been moved to the flex bracket on the pass-through connector leading from the interior of the drive to the disc drive servo control printed circuit board typically mounted to the bottom of the disc drive. The preamplifier operation generates heat. Removal of this heat has previously not been a substantial problem because, with an actuator mounting of the preamplifier, the heat is dissipated by close contact with the actuator body. However, with the mounting of the preamplifier on the pass-through connector, reliance is made on the flow of air within the disc drive to remove this heat. With the focus on smaller and smaller drives with greater and greater data capacities, the capacity of the internal air flow to remove heat becomes critical.
Accordingly there is a need for a better, more efficient means to draw heat away from internal disc drive components such as preamplifiers and their printed circuit boards. The present invention provides a solution to this and other problems, and offers other advantages over the prior art.
The invention includes a disc drive that has a drive cover configured to act as a heat sink for electronic components within the disc drive on which the cover is placed. The electronic components may include a pre-amplifier and a printed circuit board, and the cover is formed to provide a heat transfer coupling between the electronic components and the cover, thus dissipating excess heat out of the closed environment of the disc drive through the cover.
One embodiment of the present invention is incorporated into a disc drive having a data storage disc rotatably mounted on a spin or spindle motor fastened to a base plate. An actuator assembly is fastened or otherwise coupled to base plate adjacent to the data storage disc. The actuator assembly positions a transducer or head over a data surface of the disc. A cover above the base plate encloses the disc, the spin motor, and the actuator assembly between the cover and the base plate. A pass-through connector is positioned in and closes an opening through the base plate. This connector routes electrical signals from the transducer through a preamplifier mounted above the pass-through connector to a printed circuited board located below an underside of the base plate. The cover has a surface thermally coupled to the preamplifier to conduct heat from the preamplifier. In one embodiment, the cover comprises a protrusion, which may be a dent defined by the cover, that has a lower surface that is in contact with the preamplifier. Another embodiment has the connector resiliently pushing the preamplifier against the dent in the cover such that the heat generated in the preamplifier is dissipated.
These and various other features as well as advantages which characterize the present invention will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings.